Many bombs have wires and blinky leds (in the movies at least.. I don't recall seen any leds on any unexploded suicide bomber rigs), thus we must arrest anyone who shows up at the airport with wires, batteries and blinky leds.
(what about schools, shopping malls, & office bldgs?)
You can use the same logic for:
A crazy guy tried to light what looked like a fuse sticking out of his shoe so we now must make everyone take their shoes off and run them through the x-ray/explosive detector. (I'm still not convinced the shoe was actually explosive and even if it was, it most likely wouldn't have done much more than injure the wearer and the one or two people next to him, which he could have accomplished with the fork that came with the meal (oh wait, US airline? Probably no meals and he probably couldn't get the fuse lit because there was no room between him and the seat in front of him to allow him to reach his own foot. AHA!! so that's why economy class sucks! Clever, those FAA/TSA/HSL guys are.)
or slightly more tortured:
Some morons had a plan (hardly feasible and nowhere near being implemented) whereby they were going to blow up a plane using some sort of liquid/gel/paste (we're not entirely sure which) explosive, thus we must ban all liquid,gels, and paste. Except that, damn, everyone needs that stuff so, maybe we can just force them to bring in little bottles of it instead of those big, jumbo size bottles. No limit on the number of bottles though. Have a nice flight.
The only reason there's a difference in the "authorities'" reaction in the last and first example is that everyone needs toothpaste but everyone does not need a blinky led on their shirt.
and finally (and maybe not far off) we have,
Many bombers have brown skin and beards, thus we must arrest everyone who shows up at the airport with brown skin and beards.
In every case, the logic is more or less the same, but these are stupid, fear driven (and fear creating) reactions and are not making anyone safer.
The really fucked up thing is that, I can get through security with practically any odd looking electronic device with wires, batteries, & leds, so long as it looks (to TSA & HSL) as if it came from Walmart or Best Buy, but god forbid I bring my silly, simple, school project to the airport to show my friend when they arrive.
Does anyone really think the bad guys can't put some explosive in a laptop or a detonator in a cell phone? We're running scared and being manipulated people.
AND FLYING ABSOLUTELY SUCKS these days. Personally I'd be willing to risk another shoe bomber or toothpaste exploder for a more pleasant air faring experience.
(And before you go off on how scared I really should be, I grew up in a place where bombs went off practically every week for a period of several years. The way you deal with it is to act intelligently and get on with your life.)
Did you see the picture of her shirt? A breadboard, some LEDs, and a 9v battery. This incident displays only marginally less paranoia than, say, confiscating my toothpaste, and we are not any safer.
She didn't attempt to board a plane or go through any security checkpoint and we really have NO IDEA if she actually heard anyone ask her about the device, or indeed, if they actually did. (I'm willing to bet it's CYA on someone's part...)
Frankly I'm appalled (not only by this incident), at the lack of common sense of the FAA, HLS, amd Boston Police.
I say we all go out & buy some blinky, flashy, raver toys and flashmob an airport!
All they are updating (so far) is the windows update mechanism itself. There are probably many valid reasons why they'd need to do this, the big one being to ensure you are able to get important updates in the future. We all know that millions of end users out there ignore windows updates until it's too late. If they ignored a fundamental fix/update to the update mechanism itself, they might not be able to get important updates in the future so I can forgive MS somewhat for forcing this type of update.
That said, if they ever use this mechanism to fiddle with the rest of the OS without your permission, it's a huge breach of trust. It would also be disturbing if they are using this mechanism to strengthen Window's activation/genuine advantage DRM.
And yes, a warning or notice of such activity is the least they could do.
I have less problem with the key activation than I have with the fact that they still require the damn CD in the drive. That's just adding insult to injury. It would be easier to swallow activation if they at least got rid of that requirement.
However it's not that bad. No real rootkit, no services. Just a key, reg entries, and activation server, much like many of us have accepted in multiplayer FPS games for years. And a 'no CD' crack should appear soon.
I had no installation problems and I think Y2K has responded remarkably well to the gaming community.
They've promised to remove the DRM entirely, eventually, something ID started and which all game publishers should consider.
I may actually be able to live with this type of DRM on games.
Yeah... it's got major issues if you're a power user and it sucks when it breaks.
The worse thing, imo, is that the local files are actually all stored in the same (and buried, in typical MS fashion) directory with NO REGARD for the original directory structure. When it's working, offline files appear to the user to be an exact copy of the server dir tree, in fact it appears that you are accessing the server itself. HOWEVER, when it breaks and you actually need to find the local file location, they're all somewhat renamed and dumped into one dir. There's some database layer managing & faking the user experience. I honestly don't know what the hell they were thinking. Yeah you need a database but why not preserve the original dir tree?
For Windows, you're better off with a good 3rd party synch solution... SuperDuperFileSynchronizer (not free but every feature you could ask for) or pathsync (free, from the guy who brought you Winamp), or even a rsync port.
That said, MS Offlines Files does seem to keep my finance people satisfied, most of the time.
What I think is that gamers haven't had a reason to upgrade to Vista from XP You have a point. I'm a gamer and a Windows Sys Admin. I've installed Vista a bunch of times but always end up annoyed and go back to XP. I just installed it again this weekend, to judge for myself whether or not DX10 made much of a difference in Bioshock (it didn't). I don't like Vista. They made a lot of bad decisions and, straight out of the box anyway (plus latest drivers), it's demonstrably slower and buggier under many circumstances than XP is on the same hardware. So far it offers nothing I want that XP can't provide.
However, The games I play, DO work fine on it, and when the game comes along that looks significantly better on DX10 than DX9 without taking a massive performance hit, I'll probably be there.
I'd prefer DX10 for XP though.... and I expect I'll be dual booting for some time to come.
1.) Have recording in theaters be completely legal, or I'd take this over the current alternative. It seems to me that the majority of people who would be satisfied with a cam version of a movie would be unlikely to pay to see the movie in the first place. Or, if they're die hard fans who just want the first convenient peak, they'd be highly likely to pay and see a HQ version of the movie again, when they have the opportunity. With the exception of some cartoons, most cam versions are pretty unwatchable, IMO.
In any case, large theaters are rapidly turning into a niche market as home theater setups increase in size, quality, and ubiquity. At some point, movies will need be simultaneously released in all formats and the chips will fall where they may.
"We don't know exactly what this breaks but it breaks things!" Are you serious?
Now that you mention it, my Call of Duty 2 game went down the toilet around Tuesday. I game off a great weekend... kicking ass and taking names, but now, for the last 4 days I've been getting my ass kicked left and right.
MICROSOFT'S PATCH STOLE MY SKILLZ!!!
(though seriously, it does appear that while settings have stayed the same in the mouse control panels, my mouse sensitivity has changed. Coincidence? Or does Microsoft want me to game on Vista?)
Oh.. I don't deny that if you invest some time and obtain good equipment, software, & media, you can perfect your method and get good, consistent results.
However for the average person, who maybe only wants to copy something every now and then and who uses a random PC with a random DVD-writer, random media, and who-knows-which DVD copying software, I guarantee that most will find it a slow painful experience and few will get good results the first few times.
Granted you get better with practice & knowledge but most people are going to give up quickly. (and appear to have done so, from RTFA)
(and 30 minutes is still too slow when you can download a movie in 10-15 min on a good cable connection... or better yet walk to your local video rental store and back... But I'm obviously not the movie buff you are and don't care to watch most things more than once.)
But more power to you. Keep on burnin'
The burnt DVD's frequently won't play properly in a normal DVD player (or even be readable in a DVD-ROMdrive)
Optical Media is a piss poor long term storage solution.
If you're a collector and really care about quality/longevity, you probably want the real thing.
If you just want to watch a free movie, burning one is really not worth your time & effort.
It's far easier to download from BT or USENET and the quality is close enough to DVD these days that most people won't notice the difference. (assuming of course they can figure out how to hook up their PC/Laptop to their TV)
How many times can you watch the same damn move again anyway?
Much ado about nothing if you RTFA.
It's material so sensitive that officials refused to release the documents when asked. As if that means anything.
If you want to see government secrets online, go to http://www.cryptome.org/
Anyone else notice that the threat level is ramping up right before an election year? It's as if the terrorists WANT to keep the Republicans in office. Funny how that works.
I agree that Angor Wat Deserves to be on the list. I would also argue that there are far more impressive Mayan ruins than Chichen Itza.
It is indeed a rather arbitrary list.
BUT, the idea of a list of 7 wonders that still exist and that people can travel to is not an inherently bad idea. It can help educate as well as bring tourist dollars to struggling countries.
Only 7 were chosen because of the Greek's original 7. Let's not stop at 7. Let have 50!
Besides most people voting on the list would never have even seen any of them in the flesh. So everyone must be as ignorant and un-traveled as you?
(I'd love to get in a dig about Americans here but I'm not going to make that assumption)
The point of the list is that you can actually visit and see all 7 should you like/afford to. You could also get a good idea of their significance through READING. And then there's Google Earth....
I totally agree. A list of seven ancient wonders that STILL exist is not a bad idea at all.
It's much a less ethnocentric list as well. The ancient Greeks were unaware of some pretty cool stuff.
The only downside is that I now only have pieces of rubble from the sites three of the 7 ancient wonders instead of 6. (don't get your panties in a bunch... literally pebbles from the ground)
I'm really surprised at the knee jerk, 'this is stupid' reaction. I sadly suspect you are also correct about Americans' (and I'm one) tendency towards willful ignorance of things historical and international.
Even when working for the US Govt. for several years, after the.com boom, casual attire was acceptable. The only suits were upper management. I think we geeks have made casual dress acceptable in a wide variety of industries these days. Who the hell cares as long you get your job done? I'm not saying we should come to work a complete & smelly mess but, ties just suck.
At my current (and not exactly booming) employer, back in Silicon Valley, everyone still gets a chuckle when someone in a suit shows up for an interview. It almost works against them.
After that, they cover everything. You hope. This is also what many of the insured people in the movie thought. You might want to check it out.
The movie isn't really about people without insurance. It's about people like you and me.
It should be just as illegal to smoke and drink as it is to smoke some hash. But we tried outlawing booze in the 20's and it worked out just as well as Prohibition does now. Avid stoner/drinker/smoker that I am, I've given some thought to this subject.
I firmly believe that individuals should be able to ingest what ever they like. I consider it a basic human right.
However... It may not be a bad idea to make illegal, the marketing & mass production of such vices.
So... basically, you can grow your own tobacco & pot, brew your own beer & distill your own alcohol, and consume it yourself & maybe share it with your friends. BUT NOT SELL OR MARKET IT. There's no complete solution to human vice but this would at least limit the negative effects somewhat while allowing a fundamental & very personal freedom.
I'd much rather read your blog than the Google Health Advertising blog. ...And I just did. And I was right. And even though I'm more in agreement with Dawkins, I applaud your intentions.
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So it goes like this then?
Many bombs have wires and blinky leds (in the movies at least.. I don't recall seen any leds on any unexploded suicide bomber rigs), thus we must arrest anyone who shows up at the airport with wires, batteries and blinky leds.
(what about schools, shopping malls, & office bldgs?)
You can use the same logic for:
A crazy guy tried to light what looked like a fuse sticking out of his shoe so we now must make everyone take their shoes off and run them through the x-ray/explosive detector.
(I'm still not convinced the shoe was actually explosive and even if it was, it most likely wouldn't have done much more than injure the wearer and the one or two people next to him, which he could have accomplished with the fork that came with the meal (oh wait, US airline? Probably no meals and he probably couldn't get the fuse lit because there was no room between him and the seat in front of him to allow him to reach his own foot. AHA!! so that's why economy class sucks! Clever, those FAA/TSA/HSL guys are.)
or slightly more tortured:
Some morons had a plan (hardly feasible and nowhere near being implemented) whereby they were going to blow up a plane using some sort of liquid/gel/paste (we're not entirely sure which) explosive, thus we must ban all liquid,gels, and paste. Except that, damn, everyone needs that stuff so, maybe we can just force them to bring in little bottles of it instead of those big, jumbo size bottles. No limit on the number of bottles though. Have a nice flight.
The only reason there's a difference in the "authorities'" reaction in the last and first example is that everyone needs toothpaste but everyone does not need a blinky led on their shirt.
and finally (and maybe not far off) we have,
Many bombers have brown skin and beards, thus we must arrest everyone who shows up at the airport with brown skin and beards.
In every case, the logic is more or less the same, but these are stupid, fear driven (and fear creating) reactions and are not making anyone safer.
The really fucked up thing is that, I can get through security with practically any odd looking electronic device with wires, batteries, & leds, so long as it looks (to TSA & HSL) as if it came from Walmart or Best Buy, but god forbid I bring my silly, simple, school project to the airport to show my friend when they arrive.
Does anyone really think the bad guys can't put some explosive in a laptop or a detonator in a cell phone? We're running scared and being manipulated people.
AND FLYING ABSOLUTELY SUCKS these days. Personally I'd be willing to risk another shoe bomber or toothpaste exploder for a more pleasant air faring experience.
(And before you go off on how scared I really should be, I grew up in a place where bombs went off practically every week for a period of several years. The way you deal with it is to act intelligently and get on with your life.)
Did you see the picture of her shirt? A breadboard, some LEDs, and a 9v battery. This incident displays only marginally less paranoia than, say, confiscating my toothpaste, and we are not any safer. She didn't attempt to board a plane or go through any security checkpoint and we really have NO IDEA if she actually heard anyone ask her about the device, or indeed, if they actually did. (I'm willing to bet it's CYA on someone's part...) Frankly I'm appalled (not only by this incident), at the lack of common sense of the FAA, HLS, amd Boston Police. I say we all go out & buy some blinky, flashy, raver toys and flashmob an airport!
Slashdot: The Drudge Report for Nerds. Stuff for flame wars.
All they are updating (so far) is the windows update mechanism itself. There are probably many valid reasons why they'd need to do this, the big one being to ensure you are able to get important updates in the future. We all know that millions of end users out there ignore windows updates until it's too late. If they ignored a fundamental fix/update to the update mechanism itself, they might not be able to get important updates in the future so I can forgive MS somewhat for forcing this type of update.
That said, if they ever use this mechanism to fiddle with the rest of the OS without your permission, it's a huge breach of trust. It would also be disturbing if they are using this mechanism to strengthen Window's activation/genuine advantage DRM.
And yes, a warning or notice of such activity is the least they could do.
I expect he was going for 'would've' which also would've worked. ;)
However it's not that bad. No real rootkit, no services. Just a key, reg entries, and activation server, much like many of us have accepted in multiplayer FPS games for years. And a 'no CD' crack should appear soon.
I had no installation problems and I think Y2K has responded remarkably well to the gaming community.
They've promised to remove the DRM entirely, eventually, something ID started and which all game publishers should consider.
I may actually be able to live with this type of DRM on games.
1.) Poll all your executives for their pet peeves concerning email clients
2.) Poll all your Fortune 100 client executives for theirs.
3.) Assign every single feature request, no matter how silly, to a different programmer
4.) Cobble it all together and ship it as Outlook.
I suspect they do the same thing with Windows only they use grandmothers, teenagers, & copyright holders instead of executives.
Yeah... it's got major issues if you're a power user and it sucks when it breaks. The worse thing, imo, is that the local files are actually all stored in the same (and buried, in typical MS fashion) directory with NO REGARD for the original directory structure. When it's working, offline files appear to the user to be an exact copy of the server dir tree, in fact it appears that you are accessing the server itself. HOWEVER, when it breaks and you actually need to find the local file location, they're all somewhat renamed and dumped into one dir. There's some database layer managing & faking the user experience. I honestly don't know what the hell they were thinking. Yeah you need a database but why not preserve the original dir tree? For Windows, you're better off with a good 3rd party synch solution... SuperDuperFileSynchronizer (not free but every feature you could ask for) or pathsync (free, from the guy who brought you Winamp), or even a rsync port. That said, MS Offlines Files does seem to keep my finance people satisfied, most of the time.
RuneQuest!!!!! Best RPG system ever.
In any case, large theaters are rapidly turning into a niche market as home theater setups increase in size, quality, and ubiquity. At some point, movies will need be simultaneously released in all formats and the chips will fall where they may.
The internet is destroying traditional distribution methods. Nothing will ever destroy music.
"We don't know exactly what this breaks but it breaks things!" Are you serious?
Now that you mention it, my Call of Duty 2 game went down the toilet around Tuesday. I game off a great weekend... kicking ass and taking names, but now, for the last 4 days I've been getting my ass kicked left and right.
MICROSOFT'S PATCH STOLE MY SKILLZ!!!
(though seriously, it does appear that while settings have stayed the same in the mouse control panels, my mouse sensitivity has changed. Coincidence? Or does Microsoft want me to game on Vista?)
Oh.. I don't deny that if you invest some time and obtain good equipment, software, & media, you can perfect your method and get good, consistent results. However for the average person, who maybe only wants to copy something every now and then and who uses a random PC with a random DVD-writer, random media, and who-knows-which DVD copying software, I guarantee that most will find it a slow painful experience and few will get good results the first few times. Granted you get better with practice & knowledge but most people are going to give up quickly. (and appear to have done so, from RTFA) (and 30 minutes is still too slow when you can download a movie in 10-15 min on a good cable connection... or better yet walk to your local video rental store and back... But I'm obviously not the movie buff you are and don't care to watch most things more than once.) But more power to you. Keep on burnin'
I agree that Angor Wat Deserves to be on the list. I would also argue that there are far more impressive Mayan ruins than Chichen Itza. It is indeed a rather arbitrary list. BUT, the idea of a list of 7 wonders that still exist and that people can travel to is not an inherently bad idea. It can help educate as well as bring tourist dollars to struggling countries. Only 7 were chosen because of the Greek's original 7. Let's not stop at 7. Let have 50!
The point of the list is that you can actually visit and see all 7 should you like/afford to. You could also get a good idea of their significance through READING. And then there's Google Earth....
I totally agree. A list of seven ancient wonders that STILL exist is not a bad idea at all.
It's much a less ethnocentric list as well. The ancient Greeks were unaware of some pretty cool stuff.
The only downside is that I now only have pieces of rubble from the sites three of the 7 ancient wonders instead of 6. (don't get your panties in a bunch... literally pebbles from the ground)
I'm really surprised at the knee jerk, 'this is stupid' reaction. I sadly suspect you are also correct about Americans' (and I'm one) tendency towards willful ignorance of things historical and international.
...and hopefully never will.
.com boom, casual attire was acceptable. The only suits were upper management. I think we geeks have made casual dress acceptable in a wide variety of industries these days. Who the hell cares as long you get your job done? I'm not saying we should come to work a complete & smelly mess but, ties just suck.
Even when working for the US Govt. for several years, after the
At my current (and not exactly booming) employer, back in Silicon Valley, everyone still gets a chuckle when someone in a suit shows up for an interview. It almost works against them.
Bravo!
I'd much rather read your blog than the Google Health Advertising blog.
And what on earth makes you think that the military and the post office are being run well?